With multiple suppliers, hundreds or thousands of customers, even more products, and a limited amount of hours in the day, how do you manage every aspect of the supply chain so that your business is impacted least by interruptions? And how do you still sleep AND eat in addition to all that?
There are a lot of products out there that promise to do this for you – to minimize the hands on aspect of supply chain management, to free up warehouse space, eliminate inventory and keep a minimal margin on invoices paid versus invoices received. But do they really?
I recently had the chance to preview a short demo of a new product release by E2open – and I was impressed. It’s called the “E2 Collaboration Center with Supply Dashboard,” and seeks to create “a single version of the truth” when it comes to your supply chain, according to Sean Rollings, Vice President of Product Marketing at E2open. The demo, provided by Rollings and Andrew Atkinson, Director of Product Marketing at E2open, presented an easy to follow web-based solution to supply chain management. Building on the idea of cloud computing and process management, this collaborative center seeks to bring those suppliers and products mentioned above together into a single program, tossing in financial data as well.
Hoping to streamline the number of different places that one must usually go to confirm inventories, lead times, and profit forecasts, the E2 Supply Dashboard appears promising – it looks much like a Google or Yahoo homepage, with customizable widgets and virtually unlimited visibility settings (see the screen shot to the right). It can be altered according to an employee’s preferences or job description. It seeks to turn a trading network into a system of “lean responsiveness.”
Despite not having a real-world supply chain for practice, I can tell you that this appears to be a promising solution for a looming problem in many of your daily routines. Check out the press release and video below to read a little more about the E2 Collaboration Center with Supply Dashboard, and let me know your thoughts in the comments below or at [email protected].
E2open Introduces E2 Collaboration Center with Supply Dashboard
Next-generation E2open Business Network Offers Consolidated View to Real-Time Monitoring and Alerts across Supply Chain Networks
Foster City, CA – E2open, a leading provider of strategic, cloud-based solutions for collaborative execution across global trading networks, today announced the availability of the E2open Business Network V 8.0, introducing the E2 Collaboration Center and Supply Dashboard. This new product provides cross-network, real-time visibility into forecasts, orders, inventory, and logistics across multiple tiers of a trading network. It presents at-a-glance views of critical key performance indicators (KPIs) such as supplier responsiveness, cost to serve, inventory liability, and gross margin. The Supply Dashboard monitors the big data of global trading network operations in real time and provides critical event alerts related to parts shortages, cost, and risk. The addition of the E2 Collaboration Center further enables collaborative execution for faster, more profitable operations and exception-based management of assets in motion.
“Supply chain professionals have long complained that they lack a single source of truth for management and decision making in their trading networks,” said Mark Woodward, CEO at E2open. “Our Supply Dashboard overcomes this gap: it provides real-time visibility and enables them to resolve exceptions faster within the execution window.”
“Multi-tier supply chain visibility can have a positive impact on the bottom line for many companies,” said Ray Barger, research director at Gartner. “The ability to view information—transactions, status, and content—can improve supply chain operations, support real-time problem resolution, and reduce supply network risk.”
The new Supply Dashboard enables supply chain professionals to access KPIs, predictive analytics, and monetized exceptions in a personalized, role-based browser workplace. With intuitive graphs and charts showing operating unit and financial positions and trends, supply chain professionals can quickly access aggregated performance metrics, see the unit and financial impact of exceptions, and drill down into details and transactions. This enables the rapid resolution of exceptions and course corrections, all inside the execution window.
"Fast identification of exceptions, informed analysis, and rapid resolutions are critical capabilities required for today's globally extended supply chains," said Bob Ferrari, executive editor of Supply Chain Matters. "This dashboard can extract and present insights from the massive amounts of data being generated across the trading network. E2open is breaking new ground for supply chain visibility, decision-making capability, and collaborative execution needs."
For more information, visit www.e2open.com/collaboration-center.
You may also want to check out this video:
